


Exit Wounds

by elena_stidham



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Death, Depression, Descent into Madness, I'm Sorry, In which Eiji dies in episode 22, Murder, Revenge, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-06-27 22:57:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19799485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elena_stidham/pseuds/elena_stidham
Summary: There is red, and then there is nothing. Nothing at all.//An AU where Eiji dies after being shot in episode 22, which prompts Ash to spiral into madness to seek revenge on everybody. And that means everybody.





	Exit Wounds

**Author's Note:**

> WARNINGS FOR: Language, death, suicide, a literal descent into madness
> 
> SONGS USED TO GET IN THE MOOD: Various music box covers, then my recovery playlist
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/user/twijill/playlist/08UcNbQJ83tKPdZnp57XY6?si=r_vPY1buT524k1NDk5qhnw
> 
> This is literally Dawn’s fault.
> 
> https://twitter.com/nakimooshi/status/1070885451014131713?s=20
> 
> And Kayla’s fault. 
> 
> https://twitter.com/softaslans/status/1140774663922028545?s=20
> 
> So um. I’m in pain. Based on the artwork I think this is after he gets shot in episode 22, so that’s the route I’m taking here. A huge amount of inspiration actually also came from this video of a British priest reacting to Billie Eilish, specifically the video to “when the party’s over,” and he talks about how the video made him emotional. He thought it was about swallowing the darkness – depression – and it just seeps back out and is overflowing and pouring. I rewatched the video and it helped so much with talking about Ash in this, so I’m crediting that. 
> 
> But yes. Do not scream at me for this idea, for I am simply the messenger. This was horrifically hard to write, so I apologise if it was horrifically hard to read. I wanted this over just about as much as you did. My next fic is going to be heavy as well, but it’ll be something canon, so there’s that. Anyways. Let’s get this over with. 
> 
> My twitter and tumblr is elenastidham. Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you enjoy!
> 
> -Elena

He’s shrouded in red. Black and white are all that remains when the only pop of colour Ash can vividly see is red, red, red, _red_ —

He kneels down. Eiji’s hardly breathing. The gun wound still stings with powder and smoke that permeates the air.

“Eiji, Eiji,” he pleads, like a prayer. There’s voices around him. He doesn’t bother to hear.

_Hurry, call an ambulance!_

_Gotcha._

Eiji stirs only slightly. He’s marked with the stain of red – all over his body, his clothes, the pavement – there is nowhere on the earth right now that isn’t touched, _drenched_ in this shade. His voice is small, his eyes hardly open at all.

“Ash,” he calls. Their eyes meet, and Eiji notices right then: he’s not making it out of this alive. He almost wants to cry about it, but he doesn’t. He’s going to rest easy, knowing the life he lived – knowing the life Ash gets to live a little longer – he’s going to sleep well.

“You’re safe,” he smiles, now. He feels it coming, but he’s not going to say anything about it. Everyone probably knows. He thinks of his mother, and his sister. How will they take the news? Dying for some mafia boy? Perhaps they may not feel anything at all. Perhaps they’d understand. Perhaps it would fall somewhere within sanity’s requiem. He isn’t sure. Despite it, he knows they’ll be okay. He knows they’re going to be taken care of, no matter who or whatever carries out these means.

But who will take care of Ash?

He struggles through an inhale, and he knows that this is it. He feels it coming, as swift as the wind. He sees those emerald eyes, widened with terror and tinged with a mist from heartbreak and gun smoke. He knows these eyes carried themselves before, and he remembers that they’re nearing the end. He won’t have to fight for himself anymore. Things will just be okay. It’s all going to be okay.

Eiji begins his exhale, his vision starting to fade. “I’m glad.”

The final words are uprooted into the air, twisting and turning around an ocean of thoughts before they could reach Aslan’s ears. That’s right. His name is Aslan. He’s the only one in this room that knows him by this name. There’s so much more he wants to say. There’s so much more he has to tell him. There’s so much more that needs to be done.

But Eiji is met with the most tragic of circumstances. There is more red than there is time.

And it’s at this moment when Ash realises: time is out.

It all happened so fast. He’s screaming his name, reaching for him now. There is so much red. Everything is _red._

Desperate and limping hands grab onto Eiji’s body, pulling him up into his arms for the tightest embrace, ready to wake him up, yet his body does not stir. He shakes him twice, again, several times.

“Eiji,” his voice breaks, shaking with his limbs.

Ash can’t even breathe.

“Eiji, open your eyes,” he begs, now. He shakes the body some more, and it’s around this point when the sobs finally start to break in. “ _Open your eyes_!”

Eiji’s eyes don’t open, and Ash’s close too, only to press into his shoulder, to bite his skin, to hold onto him tighter, to do anything to spark some kind of reaction from the lifeless body. Once again, there’s nothing. Eiji’s arms don’t hold him back, the world doesn’t regain its colour. There’s only red. There is no Eiji.

Words don’t form anymore, all that’s left is scattered remnants of someone’s old name and the broken wails of a child echoing down cobblestone walls.

**T H E S T A I N O F R E D T H A T C O L O U R S T H E P A V E M E N T**

The weight of Eiji’s corpse still holds heavy in Ash’s empty arms. It’s been a day, now, but the events of what came prior are still replaying just as vividly as they originally came. He’s gone. Eiji Okumura is gone.

Gone. Dead. Cold. Shot. Cut. Torn. Blood from his veins.

**_ALL YOUR FAULT_ **

Ash can’t even blink without seeing him, screaming something, pushing away, the red. The red. The red. The red. The _red._

He could drown in all the blood he’s spilled at this point. All the blood he’s caused and all the blood that’s caused because of him just being around. He could fill a pool with it. He could fill an ocean. He could smother – he _wants_ to drown. It’s so easy to sink down, now, and nothing sounds better at this point than to swim to the lowest part of the red waters and suffocate.

Where is he again? He’s not outside.

There’s no colour here, there’s no light and he can’t make out what’s going on. He’s learned to lose so many people, but he couldn’t afford to lose Eiji. It’s so dark. It’s so dark everywhere.

He was only a child, damn it. He was only a scared little boy that just wanted his big brother to come home. What does he get instead? What does he earn? He’s destroyed. He’s absolutely ripped apart. There’s no other way a sad, broken boy from Cape Cod could be saved from the darkness that’s just devouring him.

It’s starting to seep out of him now, pouring into every cell and out again. It’s like darkness is the only thing left. It’s all he’s ever known. It’s all he’ll ever continue to know. He was stupid to fall in love – he was stupid to place his trust in the world when all it’s been is dark. There’s no such thing as hope here. There’s no such thing as light when all the world does is destroy and _revenge_ —

He’s on the floor.

_Revenge._

His eyes are red hot. Scorching. Flame. He’s scrambling onto his knees. Trickling flame. He’s rummaging through his clothes. Broken flame. He’s starting to scream. Diffusing flame. He’s calling for somebody. Desperate flame. Somebody comes. Looks at his eyes.

Vengeful.

Flame.

“Get Lee on the phone,” Ash commands, his voice choked and dying. “Get him here. Get him to speak to me.”

**P A I N T E D W I T H B L O O D O F S O M E B O D Y Y O U L O V E**

The silk of his hair matches the silk skin of a snake. He’s fiddling with it, across the room from a mixing flame, slowly dying, slowly realising he was alive.

“I’d like to start by saying I’m very sorry for your loss.” Yut-Lung’s voice is condescending. It’s dripping with genuine heartache, yet every single person in the room knows he’s doing it just to twist the knife further into Ash’s heart.

Ash’s own voice slices through the air with poison on the tone. “Cut your bullshit. I know you hated him.” His eyes are slit into a deeply venomous glare. If he didn’t know any better, Yut-Lung would swear that Ash’s eyes were swallowed in black, no ounce of green left – but he’s seeing past the colour, he’s seeing past all this and he’s finally seeing the storm of fire and rage boiling inside a tiny, tiny boy.

Yut-Lung shrugs. He’s sitting with his legs crossed at the ankle, his face calm and his palms preoccupied with his fingers around a glass. “I’m just paying my respects. Nothing personal, I’m still sorry.”

“I don’t want your pity,” Ash spits.

“Then why did you want me, Ash?”

They both know what he’s doing, but at this point, Ash is far too gone to care. They know the answers to their own questions, it’s just a matter of Ash allowing himself to be told what he needs to hear.

“I want you to talk to me,” he tells him coldly. “All of Chinatown knows you thought of Eiji as a weakness to me. So I want to know what you think, now that he’s gone.”

Yut-Lung notes Ash’s avoidance of the word _dead._ He holds his glance, taking a sip, before looking back down. “I have my thoughts. You know what they are.”

“Then fucking say them to me. I want to hear you say them, out loud,” Ash cuts.

Yut-Lung’s canines almost look like snake fangs when he smiles in a certain way. Ash can see them, very carefully, and he knows what they’re supposed to do. “I think it’s good for you,” he blinks slowly, his eyes shifting to the side to where they can connect with emerald contact. “You’ve been hesitant on your plan against Golzine – this may be the last thing you need for you to finally have the revenge you deserve.”

Ash exhales once, either in a scoff or a chuckle. “Deserve,” he comments.

“Deserve,” Yut-Lung confirms. “You’re just like me, Aslan Callenreese.”

Ash shoots up to his feet, and immediately Yut-Lung is holding a hand up, gently gesturing that he sits back down. “Relax already, Blanca was the one that told me.” Ash holds his stance for a moment, before slowly sitting back down. “He didn’t tell me too much. Just your name, where you came from. Who you are.” He finishes the glass, setting it off to the side and looking at him directly in the eyes. “You are me.”

“I’m nothing like you.”

Yut-Lung shakes his head twice. “You’re exactly like me. You’re a tortured little boy that grew up scared of the world. You’re just waiting for the okay – the perfect moment and reason to destroy that little boy because you _know._ You know that in reality, if you – the _real_ you – came into the world, the world would be scared of _you_.”

The room weighs heavy, now. The only voice can be heard louder than a hammering heartbeat, yet even the heartbeat rings loud.

“Tell me I’m wrong,” Yut-Lung smiles.

Aslan swallows hard, his glare steady and secure. “I’m not a monster, Lee. _That’s_ where we differ.”

“And that’s where you’re wrong.” He stands, now, making his way to the other side in slower strides. “You are a monster. You just don’t want to _admit_ that you’re a monster. Because you’re scared – you’re _terrified_ of others seeing you as a monster, too. You were scared that this monster would be the reason why you’d lose Eiji. But that’s where you went wrong,” he leans his face in. “Because Eiji’s dead anyway.”

The slap sends Yut-Lung immediately towards the ground. He plays it off with a laugh, turning around to face the boy – the child – the flame. The monster. “Tell me I’m wrong again, Ash.” He props himself up onto his elbows to look up at the towering eyes and shaking knees. “All that rage you carry, it has to come from _somewhere._ All those people that wronged you all have something coming for them, but the question is, would you allow yourself the satisfaction of being that something, or will you continue to live in denial of your true self?”

“You’re a fucking monster. You’re nothing like me,” Ash speaks in a voice that’s directed between themselves. They know what’s happening here – they know they conflict in his eyes. They know he wants to walk to the other side, they know he wants to destroy everything and everybody if it means revenge will be satisfactory. They know there’s a sliver of a good person in him left. They know that’s why he’s scared.

“You’re on your own now, just like when you were a boy,” Yut-Lung tells him. He pushes himself up to a stand. His voice remains calm, manipulating. “But you have something now that you never had then. You have hatred. You have the perfect mind set for revenge. You have everything that you could possibly use to finally hurt those who hurt you.” He notices Ash’s widened eyes, the way his pupils almost shake, the hitch in his breath like he’s scared to move. A child at heart, a child at will.

“Think about it for a moment, Aslan,” Yut-Lung says. “Think about what will happen when they’re all dead. You won’t have to be scared of anyone anymore. Nobody will ever touch you again.” He pauses, then he finishes his sentence. “Nobody you love will have to die ever again.”

It takes everything Ash has left to tell him to leave. His voice trembles while his hands twitch and shake. They both know the seed that’s been planted. They both know it comes down to the final choice.

Yut-Lung is simple while he’s obedient. He glides to the door, his movements fluid and his eyes careful like a snake through the grass. He pauses one last time, before turning back to Aslan. “Just think about it for a moment. You won’t feel regret when all you feel is hate.”

When the door closes, Ash smells gunpowder in the room again. He finds himself staring at his reflection in the metal and glass. He finds himself head to head with a small child, screaming through Cape Cod, drowning in the fire that’s eating his heart alive.

It’s as quick as the tick on a clock, a click of sorts that echoes and can be heard on the other side of the long hallway, even when there’s no sound at all. Yut-Lung just smiles as he leaves.

And then there’s Aslan, shaking in his own fire, no longer feeling the desire to scream.

**I S T H I S T H E S A C R I F I C E F O R T H E B R O K E N**

By the evening, seventeen different murders have been planned out in the most precise of details. Aslan Callenreese is stuck at seven years old. He nearly died in 2007, but he managed to live, holding onto his youth and innocence until he was finally struck down and burned a few hours into September 2018.

There is no hope for a child anymore.

The knocks come in cycles of three, and when Ash answers the door, he’s greeted with Sing, carrying the most intense remorse in his eyes. He notices a shift in Ash the moment he opens the door, he notices there’s a change.

“What do you want, Sing?” Ash commands harshly.

Sing, for a moment, doesn’t recognise this voice. He swallows hard, before pushing himself to speak. “I want to tell you I’m sorry. The ones that shot Eiji – those were my men. I should have paid more attention to them, and because of that, they did something horrible. And I’m sorry.”

Ash listens to these words, and he knows that Sing is sincere. He also knows that Sing is growing to be more and more like Shorter – and if he stays around too long, that likeness will start to be replaced with something even worse than what Ash is becoming.

“Leave,” Ash tells him simply. “Get out of here and stay away from me.”

Sing doesn’t realise what’s happening yet, but he feels a tightness in his chest when Ash says this. “I’m sorry,” he repeats. “I can try to make it up to you. I know nothing can replace Eiji, but I can try and fix the mess I’ve made—”

“—I’m not telling you again, Sing. Fuck _off_ ,” Ash snaps. “Or you’ll be dead next.”

He feels eyes on him now, and he looks up, noticing Lao’s glare from across the room. He had the same look in his eyes as those men the other night. He has the same mind.

The bullet through Lao’s head came faster than Sing could blink, and as soon as he realised what was going on, he turns to find Ash’s gun facing between his own eyes. When did he grab his gun?

“I’m giving you the chance to live,” Ash says, his voice dark. “So go.”

Sing steps backwards, before he turns and runs towards his brother. There’s no possible way that he’s alive, and he still feels the aim of a potential bullet on his back. There’s no time to taking the corpse, there’s no time for a burial or eulogy, no time for morning. He thinks, maybe this is what Ash is doing for revenge, but when he leaves, he doesn’t look back.

He has no idea.

He has no idea that this is only step one. He has no idea that he will be the only survivor from the murders done by Ash Lynx. He will never know, until it’s all said and done – until it’s all too late.

This will be the last thing Sing remembers of him. If at any point in the future if someone asks him about Ash Lynx he’ll just immediately think of his screaming, the way he clutched Eiji’s body while he’s weeping, and the way he tore himself to shreds.

**L O S I N G T H E P U R E S T O F W H A T ’ S I N Y O U R H E A R T**

Ash can’t remember when it was the last time he slept. He’s spent the entire past few hours packing everything his gang members own and lining them up at the door, so when each and every member wake up that morning they find themselves being let go.

“You have two options,” Ash would tell them simply. “The first is simple, you just leave and transfer to help Sing in Chinatown. He’ll know what to do with you. But there’s another option – each and every one of your bags has enough money for 6 months of rent at any apartment you want to stay, groceries, and extra spending money for that time period. You can take that money, and escape. No ties to me. No ties to here. Nothing to anything. Whichever you choose is up to you, but you’re not staying here with me anymore.”

They’d be faced with this choice, and every single one of them would have to choose. Some would try to fight this decision. Others would try to convince him to let them stay and help with the next fight, but Ash would push away every single one of them, threatening if he had to.

Nothing will pull him from this bloodbath quest he’s set on now, especially when there’s nobody left.

The only person left now is Blanca, who had switched to here from Yut-Lung a few nights before. They both know what Ash is doing, and more importantly, why he’s doing it.

Ash tosses the bag at his feet. “Go. I didn’t give you any money, but I know you have plenty. You’ve heard my spiel a dozen times today, and I’m not repeating it.”

“You’re skilled, Ash, but what you’re doing is suicide,” Blanca tells him sternly. “You’re smarter than that.”

“I’m smarter than all of it,” Ash confirms coolly. “But I have my plans. You’re not getting in the way of them.”

Blanca studies his tone and his gaze. He wants to kill and be killed so badly, it’s almost irrational. Yet, despite it through it’s so meticulously planned that he can’t help but believe that everything is under control, even for just a little bit.

“This won’t be the last time you see me, Ash,” Blanca tells him simply as he lifts his bag. He begins his walk towards the front door when he suddenly feels three sharp pains through his stomach up towards his chest. He turns, noticing that the smoking gun was nothing short of intentional. He’s taught Ash many things, but he had never, _ever,_ taught him to shoot through the back. He always said it was cowardly and disrespectful, and the enemy deserves just as much respect as an ally.

Yet when he meets his eye, he sees no respect at all. In fact, he basically sees nothing at all. There’s no remnants of Aslan left, it’s like the boy was shot through the back, just as he was. His eyes are hard and all they hold is malice. There is no more love. Aslan Callenreese is gone.

“None of this would have happened if it weren’t for you,” Ash tells him. There’s a tint in the glare in his eyes. “Thank you for everything you’ve taught me, but I’m done learning now.”

Blanca tries to tell him something, yet when the last bullet pierces his throat, all that can come through is blood. It spews across the floor, and the giant falls, watching the boy dwindle into ash. He watches, through the ash and flame, a monster rise and take his name.

Then he sees nothing. Nothing at all.

**O V E R A N D O V E R A G A I N**

By the end of nightfall, Gregory and Dino remain the only members of the Golzine family. Everything’s gone, and all Ash can feel on his skin is blood.

It feels warm. It feels evil. It feels like the wound in Eiji.

His mind is screaming in red. Despite Gregory becoming number seventeen, there isn’t enough red to replace the red that stained in the memory of Eiji. There was too much red then. There isn’t enough red now.

Perhaps Dino managed to escape through all the murderous confusion, but that’s only postponing the inevitable. They both know it. They both know why this is happening, yet, the coward runs anyway.

Fucking typical.

Where the hell is he again? Ash is starting to forget why he’s even here. His whole fucking life he’s had to suffer, and it wasn’t fucking fair. Every waking moment everybody had been out for themselves, and the only person he had left had to up and lose his mind in Afghanistan.

Everywhere he would go somebody would hurt him. Somebody would take advantage of that small child that permanently resides in Ash’s memory. Yet, when that child died, the world suddenly stopped trying to hurt him.

An eye for a fucking eye. He’s stopped caring who goes blind in the end.

It’s crazy, just how it would work. He stopped allowing himself to feel anything other than hatred and malice and it set himself in a prison of a mind but in a way…he’s never felt more free. The demon he was meant to become was liberating, exhilarating, yet even still, it was devastating.

There was a sort of catharsis with this path of destruction. It’s what they deserve for their actions – it’s what they deserve for what they’ve done to him. It’s what they deserve for what they’ve done to Eiji.

_EIJI!_

All his mind screams is Eiji. It replays the horrors of nights before over and over again, engraining into his DNA, severing his heart from his brain.

“Eiji,” he murmurs, not even realising he’s speaking, not even paying attention to the nobody that’s there. “ _Eiji_.”

Ash finds himself calling for no one, the crescendo of Eiji’s name disappears into the wild, and with each wasted breath on that damn name more and more of his heart explodes.

**T H E S T A I N O F R E D T H A T C O L O U R S T H E P A V E M E N T**

For a moment, Ash forgot that the Banana Fish even existed. He was too caught up in everything else, his mind too set on revenge that he forgot that his mind would crumble apart with just a needle. Maybe that’s what he wants. Maybe he doesn’t want his mind anymore. Maybe he wants to fall numb. Maybe he wants to fall apart.

Yet, when he finds himself clutching onto the briefcase that holds it all, he wants nothing more than to expose everyone and destroy them on their downfall. He’s panting. He’s breathing fire. He’s consumed in smoke. In just one place, he’s a dragon and a phoenix and a demon and a _monster_ —

The punch across his face brings Ash back to earth for a few moments. Foxx is quick on his feet and in a better position than Ash is right now. One wrong move could mean that everything Ash was fighting for will crumble apart right here and right now, and Ash would sooner destroy the Banana Fish if it meant killing them all.

He’s not after Foxx, after all. He’s after Golzine. Foxx just happened to fall in his lap and, thankfully, Ash is tired of being humane.

He’s trapped up, wrapped up in the arms of a man that’s hurt him over and over again. And now Foxx taunts him, asking what he’s going to do, commenting how pretty he looks when he’s helpless and restrained like this. His grasp around Ash tightens and his eyes grow harder. He doesn’t know.

Ash does not want to be humane anymore.

Ash may not be able to move much, but he does see one spot – one mistake – one thing that they can’t take away. His claws are gone, but he still has teeth.

He leans in to Foxx’s neck and bites down as hard as he can. He feels the flesh tear and the blood pour between his teeth, and he does pull back when Foxx tries to push and drown through his scream. He only begins to pull back when he knows his bite is over, ripping out a whole right portion of the throat before he spits it back at him.

It’s Ash’s turn to taunt him now, asking him what he’s going to do, commenting how the colour of red suits him when he’s bleeding like this. He watches Foxx fall with wide, maddened eyes, and a part of him urges for a second bite. Yet, something catches his attention through his peripherals, and he knows who this is immediately.

That’s it. That’s all who’s left.

“I knew you were the devil,” Dino tells him, calmly. “You finally grew into yourself.”

He’s beaming with pride, and his tone hints at adoration. Ash feels nothing more than disgust, than malice, than hate. He leans over, pulling the knife from Foxx’s combat uniform, turning back to the devil that groomed him into this way.

Only. One.

He bursts into a sprint, putting all his force into the stab just above Dino’s abdomen. They topple over, and Ash through the red Ash climbs on top of the monster and takes the knife back. Dino coughs, and when he sees blood spew from his own mouth he just laughs, and for the first time in these past few nights, Ash feels something other than rage. He hears laughter, then he hears the camera, then he hears himself – a desperate, crying child, only knowing how to choke and scream.

Ash doesn’t realise when he starts screaming, but he does feel his arms rise and fall, the heat of blood pressing against his skin over and over again until the laughing finally stops. Everything else he sees and hears dwindles down to silence when the party’s over. He stabs a few more times, making sure to impale through the red before he knows it’s done.

The rain is what cools him down from the blood heating his skin. The rain is what brings him back, even if just for a moment. He’s panting, crawling off now, before he looks up at the sky, running his hands over his eyes.

His hands pause behind his head – and with a simple snap towards the ground, Ash is screaming once more. His eyes are clenched shut, and his grip in his hair balls into fists, his throat nearly screamed dry.

He sees bodies. He’s nearly drowning in them. He sees the bodies he’s done. He sees the bodies he’s the reason behind. He sees the body of a child he abandoned and left to die. He sees no one. He sees everyone.

They’re all red.

**P A I N T E D W I T H B L O O D O F S O M E B O D Y Y O U L O V E**

He’s supposed to be relishing – he’s supposed to be healing. This is supposed to be done. This is supposed to be over. Yet it isn’t over! Yet, he’s still screaming!

Every time he sees the dark, he sees the red. Every time Ash even dares to close his eyes, sleep is only given in increments of twelve, with each moment of nightmare lasting longer than the last. He shouldn’t be this haunted when it’s supposed to be _over._

The world and noise of New York goes on without him, yet here he is, stuck in a world where he feels like he lives in the state of _drown._ He only feels himself splitting at the seams, when he _should_ be starting to pull together. Why isn’t the revenge working? Why isn’t the satisfactory coming?

Why does he keep seeing Eiji?

That’s when he remembers someone else. That’s when Ash realises why he’s not done. Why this isn’t over. Why any of this isn’t over.

He remembers something Ibe had told him while they were in California. He remembers what kind of a snake set him on this path to begin with, then he remembers that it must be taken down and burned, just like the rest of him. Just like everybody else.

The best way to take down a snake: to beat them at their own game.

**I S T H I S T H E S A C R I F I C E F O R T H E B R O K E N**

The first thing Ash comments on as soon as he’s inside the Lee residence is just how similar it was to Golzine’s. Sure, different cultures, different decorations, but that doesn’t change that they’re exactly the same at its core: filth. It’s a hellfire with disgusting people and blood on every name. There is nothing worthy of redemption here, especially not this one.

He’s told to wait in a room before he has the chance to be spoken to, before he notices a hairpiece on the metal platter. He’s seen it before, while they were in the west, and he knows what it holds.

It doesn’t take long of Ash fiddling with it for him to find where it disconnects – where it separates – where he finds the needle inside. He holds it delicately for a moment between his index finger and thumb, watching now it nearly vanishes when there isn’t a light reflecting off the surface.

He hears footsteps. The hairpiece is reconnected and put back. The needle is nowhere in sight.

Yut-Lung steps in, and for a moment, he doesn’t even recognise the soul that he had once known from before. Is Aslan even in there, or was he murdered like the rest?

He sits across from Ash now and studies his features, before promptly shrugging and raising a hand towards him. “I’m assuming you’ve done what I’ve foretold.”

“It did nothing to me,” Ash confesses. He keeps a steady eye on Yut-Lung. He doesn’t trust him. He doesn’t trust anyone – he doesn’t even trust himself at this rate. “I came to ask you why.”

“Vengeance isn’t overnight, my dear Aslan,” he beams. He’s dripping with so pride he could almost pluck it out of the air. He doesn’t try to hide it, after all, he’s wanted this demon for so long, he’s wanted a worthy rival. “Perhaps you should fetch your men. You could be the new king of New York.”

“You can have it,” Ash cuts abruptly. “I don’t want it.”

Yut-Lung eyes him oddly. “You’re not even going to fight me on it? After all the hard work you’ve put into it?”

Ash has to pause. All the hard work he had been _doing_ was to escape the fuck out of there. It was to get him and Shorter a nice place to stay in hiding and to pay for his brother’s recovery. It was to save himself. It was to save everyone else.

Now they’re gone.

Ash doesn’t realise how long he’s been silent, now, and it’s after the snake hisses his name he remembers where they are, where he is. He thinks, now is a good time. There’s a believable way.

His chest tightens, and his heart aches through a sob. He looks back up at Yut-Lung as if he would offer any help or condolence, and he takes his moment to just walk to him, desperately clinging to his body for some kind of physical touch. Yut-Lung raises his arms for a moment, before he reluctantly accepts this, and places his hands somewhere on Ash’s back.

He believed.

Ash holds onto this façade, just a moment longer, with his hand reaching up to wipe his eye – and pull the needle from his mouth. He intakes a sharp breath, before promptly pressing the needle into the carotid.

The force of the blood rips through the needlepoint hole with such an intensity it rips open the artery a little further. Instantly, Yut-Lung pushes him away, collapsing to the ground as his body lurches and he wheezes through blood. His hands flail to grab onto his neck, blood still managing to seep through his fingers as he struggles to keep weight on the wound.

Ash isn’t having it.

“This should have been longer. After all, Shorter’s death was longer,” he comments coldly. He steps over top of him and he kneels down. “This should have been worse. After all,” He leans his face in. “Eiji’s death was worse.”

Yut-Lung manages to cough twice, but he isn’t able to bring himself to speak. His consciousness falls before he has the chance for any final words. He slips under, and it’s at this point when Ash just reaches over and pulls his hand from his throat. He has less than a minute, now.

He watches, just a little longer, before he turns on his heel and leaves.

The snake cannot slither without a head, and the game wasn’t difficult to play. Yet, at the same time, Ash couldn’t help but notice that despite all the red he’s seen, nothing had ever come close to the red of Eiji.

It should have been him. It should have always been him.

**L O S I N G T H E P U R E S T O F W H A T ’ S I N Y O U R H E A R T**

Within a matter of fifteen minutes the entire Lee building is devoured in flames. It’s like Golzine’s, in a way, except Ash made sure that every entrance was barricaded so the corpses would only pile within. Now they’re all gone – everything should start to be okay.

But it isn’t.

He realises this on the way home when the sobs break through him all at once. He isn’t done, he isn’t over, but he’s _alone._ He’s so, entirely alone that he can feel it etched into his bloodstream. It burns. It _hurts._ It hurts so fucking bad. He realises this as he just wails down roads and across a bridge. He hurts. Everything hurts.

Ash can’t think of anything else, now. All he thinks is of the hurt – the hurt from every single person he had ever lost.

He thinks of his brother. Even before he died, he was the first to go. All those countless hours and nights spent pacing left and right, asking him, begging him, pleading, sobbing, doing anything he can to try and get Griffin to even blink his eyes. Yet, nothing came. He lost his brother when he was only a child, and it wasn’t until he was put out of his misery when the pain lasted much longer.

He thinks of Skip – the little boy he chose to trust with his brother. Ash remembers the night they met. He remembers how this small child was so quick to trust him, and all Ash ever wanted to do was protect him. But then he was ripped away, cold blooded in murder, the same way he’s lost everyone.

He thinks of a girl when he was fourteen – her name was Jesse. He thinks of how she’d tap on his windows to pull him out of Dino’s home and how they’d share a fireplace through the frigid nights in the underground tunnels of New York. He thinks of how she offered him a way out – a salvation – and all he wanted to do was to protect her from her own family. In the end, he failed to protect her, too.

He thinks of Shorter. God, _Shorter._ They weren’t just partners. They weren’t just gang companions or some kind of business buddies. They were best friends. Best. Friends. They’d stand by each other even in death and they’ll pull each other out of the most horrific of times. Yet, despite their bond, despite their trust, he was ripped apart and burned.

And then there’s Eiji. The boy he wanted. The boy he _loved._ He thinks of how he had lost all hope, with all joy and colour ripped from the world in a simple gunshot. There was only colour left. _Red._

They’re all gone. Just like him.

Everybody is gone, and it’s all Ash can think about. His chest heaves with every sob and the weight carries down on him with the intensity of a thousand remorses. He just feels nothing, yet absolutely everything. It’s all crashing through his chest like a bullet wound, and his heart only knows how to ache.

He’s wondering through his sobs, now. He doesn’t know where he’s going or what he plans to do now. Leaving this world with Eiji _was_ his plan. Falling in love, starting a new life, leaving for Japan – _that was his plan._

But it’s all gone now. Everything he had ever worked so hard for is destroyed, and his entire life only seems to be crumbling apart. His heart wrenches through each breath, his body yearning for someone else when there is nobody there. There will never anybody else. Not now. Not ever.

Never again.

Through the tears Ash finds himself walking along glass scattered across a dark alleyway. He doesn’t even know where he is at first until he decides to look around. Grand Central Terminal isn’t too far from here. There’s something else not too far way.

But right here, in this particular location, Ash’s eyes stop at a specific point on the ground. The shard of glass he sees glistens in the light ever so slightly, and the moment he lifts it up, for a split second, he sees Eiji in the reflection. His eyes immediately dart behind him with hope and a glimmer of light, but it deludes and diffuses the moment he realises that he is not there.

He was squeezing the glass in his hand a little too hard, and once he finally feels himself bleed he notices what he had done wrong. Ash winces and drops the glass to the ground, but it’s the moment he sees blood smear across the champagne plastic his mind proposes him a new idea. He will be free from all hell, once and for all.

He’s scared, Ash will admit, and he leans down to hold onto the glass again. His hands are trembling, now, and his breathing hitches into a new pace. What if there is a God? What if He sends him to hell for this, and he’ll forever be separated from everyone he loves? What if this is the only barrier between himself and who he loves? What if he can’t do it? What if this is the end?

Ash can’t concentrate on anything right now. His consciousness only staring at the blood-smeared glass and his broken reflection like a shattered mirror. Where will he go from here? Where do we go?

Can he do it? Does he really want to die?

He presses the tip to his side. It’s where Eiji was hit, several nights prior. He feels the spiral and the flame built up before now dwindling, extinguishing beneath the water and the pain of his very existence. There’s no one left to fight for. There’s nobody to stay alive for. What even is the point of life anymore? Why does he still want to fight?

Perhaps there will be someone else out there, someone like Eiji, but never quite right. They may be brighter, they may be copier, they may be happier. But none of them will be Shorter. None of them will be Jesse. None of them will be Eiji.

He hurdles through a sob and this, this is when it all happens. This is when the earth, for just a brief moment, stood absolutely still. It’s as if time paused, like everybody held their breath, like sound chose to disappear. And it’s at this moment here, with a shard of broken glass found on a dirty pavement, Ash pushes the piece into his skin.

It hurts. It hurts like hell. He misses all vital organs and even when he twists the glass it does not break still. He pries the shard of glass out now, watching it clink against the pavement and a puddle of red slowly start to follow.

His breathing slows while his vision begins to blur. He checks where he is again. This is not a good place to die. His eyes glaze around the New York city skyline, and suddenly he knows where he has to go. Part of his body is pulling him towards the nearest hospital, the part of him that still wants to stay alive. Yet, the other part of him is tired. The part of him just wants to be left alone. Somewhere peaceful. Somewhere comfy. Somewhere quiet – like a casket.

Ash begins to limp, and he breathes. He blinks. Once. Twice. And now he’s there.

He pushes himself to sit in his favourite spot by a lamp, a hand still pressed to his side as he looks up to the painted sky. He thinks that Eiji will be there, waiting for him amongst the clouds and he will die with open arms.

Ash wonders now, what is it like to die? Is there a heaven? Is he just a ghost of himself? Is there nothing? Is there darkness?

Whatever it is, it’s got to be better than here. His legs shake, his heartbeat drumming out of his chest as a final cry – _get out of the library!_ But he does not listen to his heart anymore. He should have stabbed there instead.

He wonders what the afterlife is like, now. Is there peace? Are there wars? Will he finally smile at his brother? He knows, though, there, and here – nobody can ever touch him again. Nobody will ever hurt him, nobody he loves will ever die once more. Everything’s going to be okay. Everything’s all going to be over soon.

He thinks of Eiji one more time.

 _My soul will be with you,_ he breathes again.

He struggles through an inhale, and he knows that this is it. He feels it coming, as swift as the wind. He watches the clouds. He sobs at the sky. He won’t have to fight for himself anymore. Things will just be okay. It’s all going to be okay.

There are no final words to throw into the air, twisting and turning around an ocean of thoughts before they could reach desperate ears. That’s right. His name is Aslan. Aslan. Aslan Callenreese. He’s only eighteen.

But Aslan is met with the most tragic of circumstances. There is more red than there is time. And it’s at this moment when Aslan finally realises: time is running out.

It all happened so fast. There is so much red. Everything is _red._

Ash can’t even breathe.

 _Close your eyes,_ his body begs, now. He shakes through a breath once more, and it’s around this point when the sobs finally start to break in. He closes his eyes.

Then his eyes don’t open. His wound, too. His body drums through agony and the sobs break away tragedy. There’s only red. Then there is nobody.

Words don’t form anymore, all that’s left is scattered remnants of someone’s old name and the broken memories cracking into the darkness below.

**T H E S T A I N O F R E D**

**T H E S T A I N O F R E D**

**T H E S T A I N O F _R E D_**

**_T H E S T A I N O F R E D_ **


End file.
